The buying and selling of the make-believe currencies used in online gaming has become so widespread that Chinese authorities fear it will affect the real economy.

    To quell that threat, those authorities said on Tuesday that they had issued new regulations aimed at restricting the trade and use of virtual money.

    China is one of the world's biggest markets for huge so-called multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft, and tens of millions of young people are believed to be trading virtual goods and credits for real goods and cash.

    The coin of fantasy realms have already moved markets here. So-called QQ coins - a form of currency produced by the Chinese Internet giant Tencent - have sometimes risen sharply in value against China's official currency, the renminbi, alarming officials at the nation's Central Bank.

    Some people have even traded virtual currencies in China, and exchanged them for clothes, cosmetics and other goods.

    Last year, nearly $2 billion in virtual currency was traded in China, according to the China Internet Network Information Center. Some experts say they believe there is a much larger underground economy in the virtual world.

    Most of China's big Internet companies - like Sohu.com, Netease and Tencent - have some gaming component and virtual currencies have grown up alongside many of them.

    Some smaller gaming companies have even set up what are called virtual sweatshops, cramped quarters where young people play online games to earn credits that the companies then sell at a profit to overseas customers in Taiwan, South Korea and even the United States.

    This practice is popularly known in the online gaming community as gold farming.

    Many online marketplaces, like eBay and China's Taobao, even have online advertisements offering virtual goods for sale, like World of Warcraft gold coins and virtual swords for the game Legend of Swordmen.

    Edward Castronova, a professor of telecommunications at Indiana University Bloomington who says he believes virtual currencies could pose a threat to world economies, applauded Beijing's move.

    "This action shows that at least one government is concerned about the way virtual worlds challenge its control of society," Professor Castronova said in an e-mail message Tuesday. "As virtual currencies take over more and more purchasing power, control over the effective money supply shifts from the central bank to the game developers."

    On Tuesday, China said that new regulations would restrict the trading and use of virtual money, and that virtual currencies would be banned from being exchanged for goods.

    The government also said it was moving to fight online gambling and disputes over virtual coins.

    In a release, Beijing said that while virtual currencies had helped promote online gaming, they have "also brought new economic and social problems."

    Beijing has repeatedly sought to tame the online gaming market with new regulations （and even Internet addiction camps） but the activity continues to grow.

    The new rules, issued jointly last weekend by the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Culture in Beijing, are the government's strongest effort yet to tame virtual money.

    The regulations were widely circulated just as Beijing announced it would delay adoption of a widely criticized plan to install software that was supposed to censor pornographic and other "unhealthy" Web sites in all personal computers sold in China.

    Richard Ji, an Internet analyst at Morgan Stanley, released a brief report Tuesday saying he expected only limited financial impact on Chinese gaming companies because much of the trading in virtual currencies and goods does not occur on the sites of big, publicly listed gaming companies, he says; it occurs on other Web sites.

    在網(wǎng)絡(luò)游戲中暢通無阻的虛擬貨幣正日益流行，中國政府擔(dān)心這樣會對實體經(jīng)濟(jì)帶來影響。

    為了消除由此產(chǎn)生的隱患，本周二，一些官員表示，他們已頒布新規(guī)定，旨在對虛擬貨幣的流通和使用做一定的限制。

    對于諸如魔獸世界等所謂的大型多人網(wǎng)絡(luò)游戲來說，中國是世界上最大的市場之一，用虛擬物品、貨幣與實物、現(xiàn)金進(jìn)行交易的現(xiàn)象在青年人群中非常普遍。

    在這令人瘋狂著迷的虛擬世界中，游戲幣的流通已經(jīng)形成了一定的市場。中國網(wǎng)絡(luò)巨頭騰訊公司開發(fā)的Q幣的興起曾一度與中國官方貨幣-人民幣產(chǎn)生影響，這引起了國家央行的關(guān)注。

    在中國，甚至有些人交易虛擬貨幣或換取服裝、化妝品和其他物品。

    據(jù)中國網(wǎng)絡(luò)信息中心稱，去年在中國發(fā)生的虛擬貨幣交易金額將近20億美元。一些專家認(rèn)為在虛擬世界中存在一個更龐大的地下經(jīng)濟(jì)體。

    大多數(shù)中國網(wǎng)絡(luò)巨頭，比如搜狐、網(wǎng)易和騰訊等，都涉足于網(wǎng)絡(luò)游戲，虛擬貨幣的發(fā)展也與這些巨頭們息息相關(guān)。

    一些小型的游戲公司甚至建立了所謂的虛擬游戲工廠，在那里的年輕人投身于網(wǎng)絡(luò)游戲來賺取點數(shù)，然后這些公司把點數(shù)賣給臺灣、韓國甚至美國的海外客戶，以此牟利。

    在網(wǎng)絡(luò)游戲社區(qū)中，這種做法被普遍視為是棵搖錢樹。

    許多像eBay和中國的淘寶網(wǎng)購市場甚至打出廣告，叫賣像魔獸世界的金幣和游戲笑傲江湖中的寶劍等虛擬物品。

    印地安那大學(xué)伯明頓分校的電信方面的教授Edward Castronova對于中國政府的舉動表示贊同，他認(rèn)為虛擬貨幣會對全球經(jīng)濟(jì)體帶來威脅。

    "虛擬世界對現(xiàn)實社會的管理帶來了難題，中國的行動表明政府不會對此袖手旁觀。" Castronova教授在周二的電子郵件中表示，"隨著虛擬貨幣購買力的逐漸加強，對貨幣供給進(jìn)行有效控制的矛頭應(yīng)從央行轉(zhuǎn)向游戲開發(fā)商。

    本周二，中國政府表示，新規(guī)定將會對虛擬貨幣的交易和使用進(jìn)行限制，并且明令禁止虛擬貨幣與實物的交易行為。

    同時，政府也表示將打擊網(wǎng)絡(luò)賭博的行為并對虛擬貨幣持保留意見。

    在新規(guī)定發(fā)布之際，中國政府也指出虛擬貨幣在促進(jìn)網(wǎng)游的同時，也帶來了"新的經(jīng)濟(jì)和社會問題".

    中國長期以來通過出臺各項新規(guī)定，對網(wǎng)絡(luò)游戲市場進(jìn)行整治，而行動仍在繼續(xù)。

    上周末，商務(wù)部和文化部共同發(fā)布的這些新規(guī)定是迄今為止中國政府在整治虛擬貨幣方面最嚴(yán)厲的舉措。

    各地已開始執(zhí)行這一新規(guī)定。與此同時，將在中國銷售的個人電腦上安裝對色情和其他一些不利健康的網(wǎng)站進(jìn)行監(jiān)控的軟件的計劃備受爭議，中國政府宣布將暫緩執(zhí)行。

    摩根士丹利公司的網(wǎng)絡(luò)分析師Richard Ji在本周二發(fā)布的一篇簡報中稱，他希望這項新規(guī)定不會對中國游戲公司帶來太大的影響， 因為許多大型上市游戲公司的網(wǎng)站上并沒有發(fā)生虛擬貨幣和物品的交易行為，這些行為是發(fā)生在其他一些網(wǎng)站上的。